Law Commons^™

Rehabilitating Charge Bargaining, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Nobody likes plea bargaining. Scholars worldwide have excoriated the practice, calling it coercive and unjust, among other pejorative adjectives. Despite its unpopularity, plea bargaining constitutes a central component of the American criminal justice system, and the United States has exported the practice to a host of countries worldwide. Indeed, plea bargaining has even appeared at international criminal tribunals, created to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity--the gravest crimes known to humankind. Although all forms of plea bargaining are unpopular, commentators reserve their harshest criticism for charge bargaining because charge bargaining is said to distort the factual basis of the defendant's …

Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

It is a central tenet of the laws of war that they apply equally to all parties to a conflict. For this reason, a party that illegally launches a war benefits from all the same rights as a party that must defend against the illegal aggression. Countless philosophers have shown that this so-called equal application doctrine is morally indefensible and that defenders should have more rights and fewer responsibilities than aggressors. The equal application doctrine retains the support of legal scholars, however, because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will substantially reduce overall compliance with …

Book Review: Abortion Rights: For And Against, Michelle Oberman, Julia D. Hejduk

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Myth Of Preliminary Due Process For Misdemeanor Prosecutions In New York, Anjali Pathmanathan

Faculty Publications

The existing criminal procedure laws of New York do not afford the misdemeanor accused any meaningful preliminary opportunity to fight the substantiation of the accusations against them. This is problematic given that a criminal prosecution can have extreme consequences on an individual’s life, including the loss of liberty, employment, housing, child custody or freedom from immigration removal proceedings. This article therefore analyzes the weaknesses in the existing criminal procedure laws for these prosecutions, and assesses how historical protections dissolved into the myth of preliminary due process for misdemeanor cases today. Ultimately, since the current procedures are ineffective in protecting against …

Deconstructing The Epistemic Challenges To Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Mass atrocity prosecutions are credited with advancing a host of praiseworthy objectives. They are believed to impose much-needed retribution, deter future atrocities, and affirm the rule of law in previously lawless societies. However, mass atrocity prosecutions will accomplish none of these laudable ends unless they are able to find accurate facts. Convicting the appropriate individuals of the appropriate crimes is a necessary and foundational condition for the success of mass atrocity prosecutions. But it is a condition that is frequently difficult to meet, as mass atrocity prosecutions are often bedeviled by pervasive and invidious obstacles to accurate fact-finding. This Article …

In Loco Aequitatis: The Dangers Of 'Safe Harbor' Laws For Youth In The Sex Trades, Brendan M. Conner

Faculty Publications

This Article provides the first critical analysis of safe harbor laws, which rely on custodial arrests to prosecute or divert youth arrested for or charged with prostitution related offenses under criminal or juvenile codes to court supervision under state child welfare, foster care, or dependency statutes. This subject is a matter of intense debate nationwide, and on May 29, 2015 the President signed legislation that would give preferential consideration for federal grants to states that have enacted a law that "discourages the charging or prosecution" of a trafficked minor and encourages court-ordered treatment and institutionalization. Nearly universally lauded, the sound …

Increasing Police Accountability: Restoring Trust And Legitimacy Through The Appointment Of Independent Prosecutors, Kami Chavis Simmons

Faculty Publications

Criminal prosecution of police officers raises a myriad of issues that this Article will begin to explore. First, while there has been a paradigmatic shift in police accountability in recent decades from remedies focusing on individual officers to those focusing on broad organizational reform, this Article will explore the important role that the deterrence rationale of criminal prosecution might play as one tool to address police misconduct. Second, other than deterrence, criminal prosecutions serve numerous goals, including retribution for the harms imposed upon the victims and society for the crimes. Historically, many racial minorities, when compared with their white counterparts, …

A Discourse On The Aba's Criminal Justice Standards: Prosecution And Defense Functions: The Physical Evidence Dilemma: Does Aba Standard 4-4.6 Offer Appropriate Guidance?, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

Since 1966, when criminal defense lawyer Richard Ryder was disciplined for retaining physical evidence that connected his client to a bank robbery, lawyers and courts have struggled with the ethical dilemma of how defense lawyers should deal with physical evidence that potentially incriminates one of their clients. When a lawyer takes possession of an evidentiary item, must she always turn it over to the authorities, as required by most courts that have addressed this dilemma? Or, can defense counsel return the evidence to the source from whom counsel received it as recommended by Standard 4-4.6 of the ABA Criminal Justice …

The State (Never) Rests: How Excessive Prosecutor Caseloads Harm Criminal Defendants, Adam M. Gershowitz, Laura R. Killinger

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Preempting Justice: “Precrime” In Fiction And In Fact, Mark C. Niles

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story The Minority Report, we see stylistically edited, disjointed images that appear to depict a man murdering two lovers. It is soon made clear that the images are the video representations of precognitive predictions of a future crime that were made by members of a futuristic crime prevention agency.

Later in the film, we see the same man, at home with his wife—the woman he is shown murdering in the earlier images—and it becomes clear that we are watching the last few moments …

Departing Is Such Sweet Sorrow: A Year Of Judicial Revolt On "Substantial Assistance" Departures Follows A Decade Of Prosecutorial Indiscipline (Prosecution Law Symposium), Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

the first section of this essay is devoted to demonstrating the courts' errors. Nonetheless, considered together, these opinions are perhaps an understandable reflection of judicial unease with an important component of the federal sentencing system — the longstanding, but increasingly common, practice of making deals with criminal defendants to reduce their sentences in return for testimony against their accomplices. This Article's second section will consider the most common criticisms of the system of bargaining for testimony under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines) to determine whether Singleton and Sealed Case may be good policy even if they are bad …

No-Drop Prosecution Of Domestic Violence: Just Good Policy, Or Equal Protection Mandate?, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

Domestic violence is a problem that must be dealt with for what it is: a criminal act. The only way to effectively diminish it is through the full force of the criminal justice system, which must treat domestic violence the same as it treats crime by strangers. The purpose of this note is to argue that aggressive prosecution of domestic violence-at least to the same extent that other violent crimes are prosecuted-is mandated by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Part I will examine the extent of the problems that pervade the criminal justice system, both historically and …